![]() To Voyager 2 and the Hubble Telescope, Neptune looked blue due to methane gas in its atmosphere. To Webb’s infrared gaze, though, Neptune doesn’t appear so blue-since methane absorbs infrared light, the areas of the planet not covered by bright, high-altitude clouds seem dark to the high-tech telescope, per. In previous images of Neptune taken by the Hubble Telescope, the planet has a Smurf-like blue hue, which is caused by methane in its atmosphere, according to ’s Robert Lea. Its small, rocky core is surrounded by a hot, dense fluid of water, methane and ammonia. Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun, was discovered in 1846. “I have not seen it in that level of detail since the Voyager encounter in 1989. “The ring system was absolutely mind-boggling to me,” Hammel says to the Times. “So they’re much easier to see.”Īstronomers will be able to measure the reflectivity of the rings using Webb, and more research could provide insight into their size and composition, writes the Times. ![]() “The rings are more reflective in the infrared,” Mark McCaughrean, a senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency, tells the Agence France-Presse (AFP). The pictures show Neptune’s thin rings as well as faint dust bands, which scientists had never seen in the infrared spectrum before, per the AP. To get these new images, the Webb telescope detected near-infrared light, which is outside the visible spectrum. “I’m so happy that it has worked.”Ī zoomed out picture from Webb shows distant galaxies in the background. “I have been waiting so long for these images of Neptune,” Heidi Hammel, a NASA interdisciplinary scientist for the Webb telescope, tells the New York Times ’ Jonathan O’Callaghan. The pictures, taken in July and released Wednesday, provide the clearest and most detailed look at Neptune's rings since NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by the planet in 1989, according to Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press (AP). These new views show seven of the distant planet's 14 known moons, but it's the rings that really take the spotlight. From its perch one million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope has peered deep into our solar system to capture images of Neptune. ![]()
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